It is not so hard to endure suffering as to resist ease. The
passion for martyrdom sweeps everything before it, as long as it
is challenged by no stronger force. Emanuel Bayard had lived for a
year upon the elixir of a spiritual exaltation such as has carried
men to a glowing death, or through a tortured life without a throb
of weakness. He had yet to adjust his nature to the antidote of
common human comfort.
Like most of the subtler experiences of life, this came so
naturally that, at first, he scarcely knew it by sight or name.
It was not a noteworthy matter to show the courtesies of civilized
life to the family of his old Professor. Bayard reminded himself of
this as he walked down the Point.
It was quite a week before he found leisure to attend to this
simple, social obligation. His duties in Angel Alley had been many
and laborious; it did not occur to him to shorten a service or
an entertainment; to omit a visit to the wharves when the crews
came in, or to put by the emergency of a drunkard’s wife to a more
convenient season because he had in view that which had grown so
rare to the young man, now--the experience of a personal luxury.
Like a much older and more ascetic man than he was, he counted the
beads on his rosary of labors conscientiously through. Then he
hurried to her.
Now, to women of leisure nothing is so incomprehensible as the
preoccupation of a seriously busy man. Bayard had not counted upon
this feminine fact: indeed, he lived in a world where feminine
whim was an element as much outside his calculation as the spring
fashions of the planet Uranus. He was quite at a loss when Miss
Carruth received him distantly.
The Flying Jib was, as to its exterior, an ugly little cottage
run out on the neck of the jutting reef that formed the chief
attraction of the Mainsail Hotel. The interior of the Flying Jib
varied from a dreary lodge to a summer home, according to the
nature of the occupants. It seemed to Bayard that season absurdly
charming. He had lived so long out of his natural world, that the
photographs and rugs, the draperies, the flowers, the embroidery,
the work-baskets, the bric-a-brac, the mere presence of taste and
of ladies, appeared to him at first essential luxury. He looked
about him with a sigh of delight, while Mrs. Carruth went to call
her daughter, who had gone over to the fish-house study with the
Professor, and who could be seen idling along home over the meadow,
a stately figure in a pale, yellow summer dress, with a shade hat,
and pansies on it.
As we say, that young lady at first received Bayard coolly.
She sauntered into the little parlor with her hands full of
sweet-briar, nodded to him politely, and excused herself at once
to arrange her flowers. This took her some time. Mrs. Carruth
entertained him placidly. Helen’s eyes saw but did not seem to see
the slightest motion of his nervous hand, each tone of expression
that ran over his sensitive face. He had looked so eager and happy
when she came; almost boyishly thirsting for that little pleasure!
She had that terrible inability to understand the facts of his life
or feeling which is responsible for most of the friction between
two half-attracted or half-separating human beings. But when she
saw the light die from his eyes, when she saw that hurt look which
she knew quite well, settle about the lower part of his face, Helen
was ashamed of herself. Mrs. Carruth was mildly introducing the
subject of mosquito bars; theirs, she said, were all on the second
story; the supply didn’t go round, and the Professor objected to
them; so the hornets--
“Mother,” said Helen, “I wonder if Mr. Bayard wouldn’t like to have
us show him the clam study?”
“Your father said he should be at work on the ‘State of the
Unforgiven after Death,’” replied Mrs. Carruth. “I don’t know that
we ought to disturb him; do you think we ought, Helen?”
“He was whittling a piece of mahogany for the head of a cane when I
left him,” said Helen irreverently; “he stole it out of the cabin
of that old wreck in the inner harbor. Do you think a Professor
of Theology could be forgiven after death for sneak-thieving, Mr.
Bayard?”
She abandoned the idea of visiting the clam study, however, and
seated herself with frank graciousness by their visitor. Mrs.
Carruth having strolled away presently to keep some elderly tryst
among the piazza ladies of the hotel, the young people were left
alone.
They sat for a moment in sudden, rather awkward silence. Helen
looked like a tall June lily, in her summer gown; she had taken
her hat off; her hair was a little tumbled and curly; the wind
blew in strong from the sea, tossing the lace curtains of the
Flying Jib like sails on a toy boat. The scent of the sweet-briar
was delicately defined in the room. Bayard looked at her without
any attempt to speak. She answered his silent question by saying,
abruptly:--
“You know you’ll _have_ to forgive me, whether you want to, or not.”
“Forgive you?”
“Why, for being vexed. I _was_ a little, at first. But I needn’t
have been such a schoolgirl as to show it.”
“If you would be so kind as to tell me what I can possibly have
done to--deserve your displeasure--” began Bayard helplessly.
“If a man doesn’t understand without being told, I’ve noticed he
_can’t_ understand when he is told.... Why didn’t you wait till
next fall before you came to see us, Mr. Bayard?”
“Oh!” said Bayard. His happy look came back to his tired face, as
if a magic lantern had shifted a beautiful slide. “Is _that_ it?”
He laughed delightedly. “Why, I suppose I must have seemed
rude--neglectful, at any rate. But I’ve noticed that if a woman
doesn’t understand without being told, she makes up for it by her
readiness of comprehension when she is told.”
“What a nice, red coal!” smiled Helen. “The top of my head feels
quite warm. Dear me! Isn’t there a spot burned bald?”
She felt anxiously of her pretty hair.
“Come over and see my work,” said Bayard, “and you’ll never ask me
again why I didn’t do anything I--would so much rather do.”
“I never asked you before!” flashed Helen.
“You did me an honor that I shall remember,” said Bayard gravely.
“Oh, please don’t! Pray forget it as soon as you can,” cried Helen,
with red cheeks.
“You can’t know, you see you _can’t_ know, how a man situated as
I am prizes the signs of the simplest human friendship that is
sincere and womanly.”
So said Bayard quietly. Helen drew a little quick breath. She
seemed reconciled now, to herself, and to him. They began to talk
at once, quite fast and freely. Afterwards he tried to remember
what it had all been about, but he found it not easy; the evening
passed on wings; he felt the atmosphere of this little pleasure
with a delight impossible to be understood by a man who had not
known and graced society and left it. Now and then he spoke of his
work, but Helen did not exhibit a marked interest in the subject.
Bayard drew the modest inference that he had obtruded his own
affairs with the obtuseness common to missionaries and other
zealots; he roused himself to disused conversation, and to the
forgotten topics of the world. It did not occur to him that this
was precisely what she intended. The young lady drew him out, and
drew him on. They chatted about Cesarea and Beacon Street, about
Art, Clubs, Magazine literature, and the Symphony Concerts, like
the ordinary social human being.
“You see I have been out of it so long!” pleaded Bayard.
“Not yet a year,” corrected Helen.
“It seems to me twenty,” he mused.
“You don’t go to see your uncle, yet?”
“I met him once or twice down town. I have not been home, yet. But
that would make no difference. I have no leisure for--all these
little things.”
He said the words with such an utter absence of affectation that it
was impossible either to smile or to take offence at them. Helen
regarded him gravely.
“There were two or three superb concerts this winter. I thought of
you. I wished you had come in”--
“Did you take that trouble?” he asked eagerly.
“I don’t think I ever heard Schubert played better in my life,” she
went on, without noticing the interruption. “Schoeffelowski does do
The Serenade divinely.”
“I used to care for that more than for any other music in the
world, I think,” he answered slowly.
“I play poorly,” said Helen, “and I sing worse, and the piano
is rented of a Windover schoolgirl. But I have got some of his
renderings by heart--if you would care for it.”
“It is plain,” replied Bayard, flushing, “that I no longer move
in good society. It did not even occur to me to ask you. I should
enjoy it--it would rest me more than anything I can think of. Not
that that matters, of course--but I should be more grateful than it
is possible for you to understand.”
Helen went to the piano without ado, and began to sing the great
serenade. She played with feeling, and had a sweet, not a strong
voice; it had the usual amateur culture, no more, but it had a
quality not so usual. She sang with a certain sumptuous delicacy
(if the words may be conjoined) by which Bayard found himself
unexpectedly moved. He sat with his hand over his eyes, and she
sang quite through.
“Komm beglücke mich?
Komm beglücke mich!”
Her voice sank, and ceased. What tenderness! What strength! What
vigor and hope and joy, and--forbid the thought!--what power of
loving, the woman had!
“Some lucky fellow will know, some day,” thought the devotee.
Aloud, he said nothing at all. Helen’s hands lay on the keys; she,
too, sat silent. It was beginning to grow dark in the cottage
parlor. The long, lace curtain blew straight in, and towards her;
as it dropped, it fell about her head and shoulders, and caught
there; it hung like a veil; in the dim light it looked like--
She started to her feet and tossed it away.
“Oh!” he breathed, “why not let it stay? Just for a minute! It did
nobody any harm.”
“I am not so sure of that,” thought Helen. But what she said, was,--
“I will light the candles.”
He sprang to help her; the sleeve of her muslin dress fell away
from her arm as she lifted the little flicker of the match to the
tall brass candlestick on the mantel. He took the match from her,
and touched the candle. In the dusk they looked at each other with
a kind of fear. Bayard was very pale.
Helen had her rich, warm look. She appeared taller than usual, and
seemed to stand more steadily on her feet than other women.
“Do you want me to thank you?” asked Bayard in a low voice.
“No,” said Helen.
“I must go,” he said abruptly.
“Mother will be back,” observed Helen, not at her ease. “And Father
will be getting on with the Unforgiven, and come home any minute.”
“Very well,” replied Bayard, seating himself.
“Not that I would keep you!” suggested Helen suddenly.
He smiled a little sadly, and this time unexpectedly rose again.
“I don’t expect you to understand, of course. But I really ought to
go. And I am going.”
“Very well,” said Helen stiffly, in her turn.
“I have a--something to write, you see,” explained Bayard.
“You don’t call it a sermon any more, do you? Heresy writes a
‘something.’ How delicious! Do go and write it, by all means. I
hope the Unforgiven will appreciate it.”
“You are not a dull woman,” observed Bayard uncomfortably. “You
don’t for an instant suppose I _want_ to go?”
Helen raised her thick, white eyelids slowly; a narrow, guarded
light shone underneath them. She only answered that she supposed
nothing about it.
“If I stay,” suggested Bayard, with a wavering look, “will you sing
The Serenade to me--all over again?”
“Not one bar of it!” replied Helen promptly.
“You are the wiser of us two,” said Bayard after a pause.
The tide was coming in, and gained upon the reef just outside the
cottage windows, with a soft, inexorable sound.
“I am not a free man,” he added.
“Return to your chains and your cell,” suggested Helen. “It is--as
you say--the better way.”
“I said nothing of the kind! Pardon me.”
“Didn’t you? It does not signify. It doesn’t often signify what
people _say_--do you think?”
“Are you coming to see my people--the work? You said you would, you
know. Shall I call and take you, some day?”
“Do you think it matters--to the drunkards?”
“Oh, well,” said Bayard, looking disappointed, “never mind.”
“But I do mind,” returned Helen, in her full, boylike voice. “I
want to come. And I’m coming. I had rather come, though, than be
taken. I’ll turn up some day in the anxious seat when you don’t
expect me. I’ll wear a veil, and an old poke bonnet--yes, and a
blanket shawl--and confess. I defy you to find me out!”
“Miss Carruth,” said the young preacher with imperiousness, “my
work is not a parlor charade.”
Helen looked at him. Defiance and deference battled in her brown
eyes; for that instant, possibly, she could have hated or loved
him with equal ease; she felt his spiritual superiority to herself
as something midway between an antagonism and an attraction, but
exasperating whichever way she looked at it. She struggled with
herself, but made no reply.
“If I am honored with your presence,” continued Bayard, still with
some decision of manner, “I shall count upon your sympathy.... God
knows I need it!” he added in a different tone.
“And you shall have it,” said Helen softly.
It was too dark to see the melting of her face; but he knew it
was there. They stood on the piazza of the cottage in the strong,
salt wind. Her muslin dress blew back. The dim light of the candle
within scarcely defined her figure. They seemed to stand like
creatures of the dusk, uncertain of each other or of themselves.
He held out his hand; she placed her own within it cordially. How
warm and womanly, how strong and fine a touch she had! He bade her
good-night, and hurried away.
That “something” which is to supersede the sermon was not written
that night. Bayard found himself unable to work. He sat doggedly
at his desk for an hour, then gave it up, put out his light, and
seized his hat again. He went down to the beach and skirted the
shore, taking the spray in his face. His brain was on fire; not
with intellectual labor. His heart throbbed; not with anxiety for
the fishing population. He reached a reef whence he could see
the Mainsail Hotel, and there sat down to collect himself. The
cottage was lighted now; the parlor windows glimmered softly; the
long, lace curtains were blowing in and out. Shadows of figures
passed and repassed. The Professor had settled the state of the
Unforgiven, and had come back from the clam study; he paced to and
fro across the parlor of the Flying Jib; a graceful figure clung to
his theologic arm, and kept step with him as he strode.
Presently she came to the low window, and pushed back the lace
curtain, which had blown in, half across the little parlor. She
lifted her arms, and shut the window.
The waves beat the feet of the cliff monotonously; like the bars
of a rude, large music which no man had been able to read. Bayard
listened to them with his head thrown back on the hard rock, and
his hat over his eyes. Even the gaze of the stars seemed intrusive,
curious, one might say impertinent, to him. He desired the shell of
the mollusk that burrowed in the cleft of the cliff.
The tide was rising steadily. The harbor wore its full look; it
seemed about to overflow, like a surcharged heart. The waves rose
on; they took definite rhythm. All the oldest, sweetest meanings of
music--the maddest and the tenderest cries of human longing--were
in the strain:--
“Komm beglücke mich?
Beglücke mich!”
Those mighty lovers, the sea and the shore, urged and answered,
resisted and yielded, protested and pleaded, retreated and met,
loved and clasped, and slept. When the tide came to the full, the
wind went down.